UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — “ExhiFISHion,” an exhibit that features fish-themed art created in August by first-year students during a welcome event hosted by the College of Arts and Architecture’s Early Welcome Program and Mending Walls Penn State, will be on display in the Patterson Gallery from Sept. 14 -18.
An opening reception for the exhibition will be held in the gallery from 4-6:30 p.m. on Sept. 15.
Established in 2017, the College of Arts and Architecture Early Welcome Program was introduced to support a smoother transition into college life for incoming first-year students by building early connections with peers and faculty while familiarizing new students with facilities and student resources.
Each year, staff from Shaver’s Creek’s Team Development Center train undergraduate Early Welcome leaders to help facilitate a pizza party picnic and lead team-building activities on the lawns and terraces around the University Park Arts District before the start of the academic year.
New to the experience this year was the addition of an arts-focused rotation during the Friday teambuilding sessions. Through a collaboration with Mending Walls Penn State, a registered student organization that strives to build empathy and understanding among students from diverse backgrounds through conversation and collaborative art projects, first-year students created “shields” shaped like fish scales that consisted of drawings representing different aspects of themselves and what they hope to experience in college.
Dialogue around these drawings was then prompted by the student leaders to help build a sense of community among the participants.
Ava Bierly, Mending Walls executive board member and a senior majoring in art education and film production, said the event ignited conversation among students that evolved past the introductory small talk resulting from first-year nerves.
“Having conversations that celebrate the uniqueness of each student as a welcome to their college experience was really cool,” Bierly said. “We hope that the exhibition will show how the connections made at early welcome can continue beyond the single day event and extend into the whole college experience.”
The “ExhiFISHion” exhibition is supported by the Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean’s Chair in the College of Arts and Architecture, and the College of Arts and Architecture Early Welcome Program is supported by the Valley Family Fund for Excellence established by Kent and Virginia K. Valley.